DGM: Deck the Halls with Innocence
by Lilac Lenalee
Summary: All Allen Walker wants is a normal Christmas at the Order. However, this proves to be a difficult wish thanks to an insanely-protective Komui, an unusually moody Lenalee, and a variety of strange feelings Allen's never experienced before. *AllenxLenalee*
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Here's my Christmas present to all my lovely watchers, reviewers, and supporters on ! I love you all, and I hope you accept this as your Xmas gift from me. Enjoy~

Particular thanks to the following individuals (in no particular order):

Oh that Macy, shinigamitales, LonelyRealm, Deviltrigger Dante, ColinatorGX, heartsforu, IAmNotASardine, Miyo-chan02, Mangaka Shuzen, RammsteirNails, fictiongurl13553, Kinomoto1995, Seras0Victoria, and shadowers-end. I thank each and every one of you from the very bottom of my heart for taking the time to review my DGM stories, I appreciated every one of your reviews so much! :'D I hope you all have a wonderully superb Xmas!

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"REPEAT AFTER ME!"

The intimidating glint of Komui's glasses, the glint that suggested, with merely the tiniest manipulations of light, that if _anyone_ were to break the sacred codex of** Maintain Lenalee Lee's Chastity** the full fury of hell would unquestionably be released upon them,

was beyond…

the definition…

of terrifying.

Allen and Lavi stood side by side, fear cementing them to the ground; Lenalee's purity was no joking matter, and they intended to appear to support that notion as best they could even beneath Komui's gaze of absolute, undisputed murder.

"I SOMLEMNLY SWEAR—"

"I solemnly swear…"

"—THAT I WILL NOT—"

"That I will not…"

"UNDER _ANY_ CICRUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER—"

"Under _any_ circumstances whatsoever…"

A moment of silence so intense, so incredibly, inexorably, implicitly panic-stricken the nerves entered a dissociative state of temporary comatose, filled the room like eerie carbon monoxide fumes, suffocating Allen and Lavi into a fitful state of motionless, ego-murdering terror.

Komui gave them a hard glare before the spit flew out of his mouth once again. "—KISS LENALEE LEE BENEATH THE MISTLETOE THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON!"

"Kiss Lenalee Lee beneath the mistletoe this Christmas season." Allen and Lavi finished with rough simultaneity, beads of spit freckling their faces as they blinked up at Komui with completely innocent, not-at-all-scheming, rebellion-free eyes. The supervisor merely glared back at them with a look that could've made a Noah turn pale.

As Komui's face morphed into an expression of over-exaggerated depression, Allen could almost picture the collage of fanatical, purity-shattering images he was beginning to fabricate of his precious baby sister, most likely ones that involved her canoodling beneath the mistletoe with a male counterpart rather aggressively. He suppressed a shiver.

He in _no way_ planned on receiving a death penalty for Christmas this year. Absolutely positively no way. Allen Walker was going to have a fine Christmas at the Order, one filled with merriment, friendly gift exchanging, and a whole lot of feasting. No spit-swapping. No lip crushing. Just a nice, happy Christmas.

He could already sense the waves of disappointment emanating off of Lavi.

"Do you boys understand?"

"With distinction, Chief!" Lavi fired back his response with far too much enthusiasm, followed by a sharp salute.

"Walker?"

The way he had stated his name— no more like _hissed_ it— made Allen feel as if every artery in his body had just been tied up with sparkly red ribbon and shipped off to the bottom of the ocean to rot in crushingly wet isolation.

"I-I understand."

The thoughts as to why the Order even _bothered_ putting up mistletoe in the first place began to bully the logical portion of Allen's brain; why did they? It wasn't like there was a whole catalogue of girls to choose from at the Order. Wasn't it only natural, manly instinct to secretly, in the very pits of the strictly prohibited portion of the id, even beneath the outer shell of gentlemanly charades and acceptably acceptable lip service… wasn't it only natural to yearn for the soft, lush lips of the nicest looking girl around?

But then it hit him.

Mistletoe was obviously Komui's super sketchy way of revealing just who exactly did have above PG thoughts of Lenalee Lee. And he would no doubt use it as the perfect excuse in vaporizing them from the face of the planet if they were ever caught. There was even rumour that hidden _cameras_ had been stationed near every sprig of the lovey-dovey plant, in order to make absolutely doubly sure that no brushing of the lips ever involved those of the precious, baby Lenalee.

Komui almost seemed scarier than the Earl these days.

"Wonderful to hear boys!" a candy cane had been stuffed unceremoniously into both Lavi and Allen's dumbfounded mouths by a pair of Christmas clad scientists, the minty spear puncturing Allen's tongue with a scraping burst of peppermint. "Now then, off you two young, completely unlecherous and in no way interested in my little sister boys go, go on now, go ravage the halls with your Christmas spirit!"

Komui was now smacking coffee-stained papers against their backs, forcing Allen and Lavi back out into the bustling Order hallways before they could reject otherwise. The sound of the doors closing behind them indicated that the "mistletoe rule" was officially closed for discussion.

Allen wrapped his tongue absently around the candy cane, its smooth, tangy jab of peppermint making his taste buds sweat rather profusely. A rather strange, rather uncomfortable bulge was migrating its way through his stomach, diffusing and spreading its influence to his thoughts and feelings until even they become deliriously confused with their identities. What the hell…?

"Oi, Allen."

It was coming to him. That feeling, it felt kind of like…

"Allen."

…kind of like a foreign version of…

"Oh yoohoo, Allen-kun!"

"Whu?" Allen whipped his head to face Lavi, who was giving him an unimpressed shake of the head.

"So you respond to me when I sound like Lenalee, eh? Interesting…"

"That's not true!" Allen could already feel his cheeks tingling awkwardly. "I was simply shocked at hearing you sound so feminine!"

"Oho, that's what they all say Moyashi-chan!" the unnecessary wink accompanying his comment resulted in Allen chomping off the base of his candy cane with an overly vicious crack.

"It's Allen."

Lavi gave a mocking suck on his candy cane, apparently unaffected by Allen's searing glare.

"Well I got some news that'll make you happy," Lavi commented casually, his hands finding a nice resting place behind his head as he began to walk away. "The kitchen's coined today as 'Christmas Baking Day', so, if we get there early enough…" he turned to face Allen, a look of immature Bookman knowledge twisting his mouth into a cocky grin, "… we get to sample all the reject goodies!"

A firework seemed to go off in Allen's stomach, frying all former feelings of confusion into sizzling crisps of hopelessly forgotten discomforts. He liked homemade sweets. He liked them _a lot_.

"Yo, so are you coming or not?"

The perfectly timed growling of his stomach answered Lavi's question quite effectively.

The tangy, buttery aroma of spices and powders all fluffily merrymaking in the heat of an oven, the golden scent that made one's taste buds cry of impatience… was not what Allen or Lavi smelt as they entered the dining hall. Instead, they were hit with a rather blunt gush of charred air, one that reeked with the putrid, nose-scratching scent of overcooked pastry quite splendidly.

"The hell…" Lavi flipped his candy cane to the opposite crook of his mouth. "It smells like someone _died _in here."

Allen's stomach entered a state of mourning for all the delicious sweets that had not made it out of the fiery depths of the oven in one flaky, golden piece. His momentary grief, however, was put on hold as an utterly defeated looking Miranda came trudging towards them.

"Lavi… Allen-kun…." words flopped from her mouth incohesively. "The oven… the oven hates me! It hates me!"

Allen gave a chuckle oozing with fake cheer. "I'm sure it doesn't _hate_ you, Miranda!"

"Yeah, ovens don't even have feelings!" Lavi chipped in, candy cane bobbing up and down in his mouth agreeably.

The look she shot them seemed to blatantly think otherwise.

Pity began to sprinkle its effects on Allen's feelings. "Here Miranda, why don't Lavi and I come and have a look at the, uhm, oven for you?"

He heard Lavi give an unappreciative crunch of his candy cane. "Yeah, we'd love to help."

"Oh, but I couldn't…" Miranda's eyes were lassoed in tears, her frail-looking body shaking in repulsion at the offer.

"No, no, we insist!" Allen offered his hand to the defeated woman at his feet, trying not to cringe when its snot-laced, tear covered exterior accepted it clingingly.

"Thank you, Allen-kun. I-I really don't deserve this…"

"Oh, nonsense!" Allen continued to slowly mend Miranda's negligible self-confidence with his cookie-cutter words of gentlemanly stature, all the while trying to dodge the burnt corpses of cookies and assortment of lifeless, rusty baking sheets littering the floor. The entire dining hall seemed to be fogged over in a grieving veil of smoke, mourning over the heavy casualties of cooking ingredients and usable baking tools lost to the war of Christmas baking.

Eventually Miranda managed to direct Allen towards her cooking station, which was covered in so much batter and baking materials it seemed as if it had contracted some sort of heinous, highly-contagious disease. Every where he looked, batter was present; it was as if the damn shit was mating, reproducing globs of offspring with the speediness expected from a bizarre period of asexual reproduction. His conscience began complimenting him on his stupid gullibility, however, when he felt an egg fracture hideously beneath his foot.

"Here it is."

Trying exceptionally hard not to curse, Allen turned to look at the oven, which he had failed to distinguish amongst the ruins of food that had failed to stay in Miranda's cooking bowls. He could've sworn he heard a faint sizzling sound bubbling from somewhere on top of it…

"Right, okay…"

He hadn't the faintest clue what to do. When it came to cooking, Allen was horrifically talentless. But that was only cooking. _Baking_, on the other hand… the world, one might say, was in severe danger of being blown up whenever Allen Walker decided it'd be a bloody brilliant idea to try and do some baking.

Nonetheless, Allen gave one hefty glance at what he _believed_ was a cookie recipe (homeless batter had made it quite hard to discern), scooped a few handfuls of the crap smothering every inch of the cooking station into what looked like passable cookie shapes, and flung it into the oven with a nifty flip of a dial.

"There you are Miranda, cookies that are good as new!" Allen laughed as whole-heartedly as he possibly could at that moment, a greasy hand applying batter to his hair as it rubbed the back of his head bashfully.

"I… was making a cake, Allen-kun."

The laughter instantly stopped.

"….. _oh_."

Something sharp was now poking repetitively into his back.

"Psst, Allen! Lookie over here!"

Pivoting around, Allen instantly relocated Lavi's whereabouts; but before he could rip his head off and shove it in an oven for not helping him with Miranda, a most breathtaking, most unbelievably beautiful sight graced his eyes. For a moment, Allen seriously considered if he was hallucinating.

"Allen-kun, I think they're burning!"

Screw it, he wasn't hallucinating.

There, tucked safely behind Lavi's grinning figure was a plate filled with cookies. Fluffy, sugar-kissed cookies. Cookies that looked as if angels had mixed their elegant bliss into every mix and swirl required to make them. Cookies that…. that…. brought tears of hope, tears of happiness that words alone could not possibly describe into Allen Walker's disbelieving eyes. There still was something edible to eat in the dining hall after all! He could almost hear the chants of Hallelujah soundtracking the moment!

"Lavi… is this… is this…"

"Edible?" the apprentice Bookman clinked his candy cane between his teeth, taking the words right out of Allen's now numb mouth. "Damn straight it is!

"HAHHH!"

Eyes fully illuminated, Allen went on a full-blown eating spree, mounds of the light, perfectly baked, perfectly crafted cookies flying into his mouth at a speed nearly too fast for human vision to optically define. He had… he had discovered the meaning to life, oh yes! Perfectly baked cookies were the definition of life, at its finest. Oh sweet mother of millennium, he could eat these all day—

"ALLEN WALKER!"

That voice. Had… had angels really come to congratulate him on his new found understanding about life?

"What do you _think_ you are doing to my Christmas baking?"

Yes, oh yes. That perfectly feminine voice, accented with sweetness that could make even a cookie swoon, so pretty and blissful it felt like butterfly kisses attacking the body with their gentle, ticklish caresses… he had to be in heaven. _Had to be_.

"Lavi, guess what—"

A raging hand slapped him on the cheek, sending five cookies flying out of his mouth and another nearly all the way down his throat.

"Allen Walker do you have _any_ self-control in that immature body of yours?" Lenalee was yelling at him, her eyes like molten violets passionately assaulting people with their bold beauty.

"I think so."

His response was obviously not a very good one, seeing as it earned him yet another slap _plus_ an unnecessary fit of laughter (courtesy of Lavi).

"I worked all morning making those, and now they're…. they're…"

Oh fuck. The tears were coming. The iris barriers of her eyes were shivering, her cheeks tightening into a blushing frenzy of useless self-restraint, her mouth tucking into a tight-lipped line that looked as if the uttering of one mere word would send her into a fit of inconsolable tears… _damn_, Lenalee had that look down pretty good.

He had one chance to bandage things up. Lavi was giving him a look that suggested he better not mess up or else he'd most certainly be killed. Lenalee was glaring at him with a look that had adopted every ounce of guilt in the world and was now freely dumping it onto Allen. And Miranda…. well, Miranda looked like she was watching someone be murdered. Most likely her cookies.

"Uhh…"

Dear god, what had Cross always done in these kinda situations?

"I'm sorry?"

"God dammit don't make it a question Allen-kun!" Lenalee's eyes were frothing with tears.

"Okay, Lenalee, I'm really really _really _sorry, honest to God I am!"

For a moment the tears almost looked like they might subside, might not dribble down her flawless white complexion and scar it with their heavy liquid emotion after all…

"It's just they looked _really_ good."

His vocal cords had officially been divorced from his brain; Allen had no idea why he had just said that.

"Oh, you don't say?" Lenalee's voice, despite her face back to normal functioning, was shaking, was giving off the impression of being unstable, of being swept away by sounds much bigger than itself.

He heard an awfully rude snicker come from Lavi's direction.

"Lavi?"

Caught completely off guard, Allen watched as Lavi's candy cane catapulted out of his mouth and turned into a slobbery mess of splintered peppermint stripes at his feet. "Uh, yes, Lenalee?"

"Go help Miranda."

No one dared say a word.

"_Now_, Lavi."

"As you command, Miss. Lena!"

Allen wished at that moment he could grab hold of Lavi and be dragged along with him. _Anything_ to break the poisonous gaze Lenalee was now stabbing him unrelentingly with. Her gaze was so volatile, so hotly illuminated with contempt, Allen actually wondered for a fleeting second if violets were deadly, man-eating plants that he had untruthfully been told were harmless until that very moment of his soon-to-be-finished life.

"And Allen-kun…"

Consciously, or perhaps maybe unconsciously, he braced himself for the storm known as female emotions.

"You can help me with the wrapping."

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**A/N: **Well, hope you all enjoyed the first part, minna! I decided for Xmas I'd write something more light and humorous, ya know, something a little more on the sarcastic side (since I rarely do that these days), so hopefully you still liked it And sorry if it's a little OOC (I don't really care to know if it is or not though), I just decided to have fun with this and not be too concerned with perfecting every little aspect, also something that's very rare for me.

OMG 10 DAYS TILL XMAS OMG!

All reviews, faves, and watches are GREATLY appreciated! I will love you forever~

**All characters are property of Katsura Hoshino-sensei** 


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Chapter 2 minna! And OOOOHWOOOOW people actually started watching this story? I FEEL SO HONORED! THANK YOU EVERYONE! I AM SO ETERNALLY GRATEFUL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA! YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE! ARIGATOU! *end of sap spaz*

Oh, and to everyone who reviewed and faved, you are much loved too, don't worry :'D

ENJOY!

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It _had_ to have been bigger than the Earl. The sheer monstrosity of the sight alone was enough to make anyone stumble sideways a little, maybe even lose track of what they were doing momentarily as they gawked at what appeared to be a deserted city of lifeless proportions: the Order's collection of Christmas gifts.

Allen's newly acquired candy cane hung hazardously from his mouth; the sheer volume of gifts… they sloped up into a gigantic pyramid, making Allen feel as if he were standing in the Sahara desert. Well, except only _after_ it had been taken over by excessively joyous Christmas freaks, those of who had a strange fetish for giving abominable amounts of crappy gifts that no one would ever really be thankful for getting. If they were to all topple over, turn into a landslide of gadgets and trinkets, someone would _surely_ be killed. Suffocated, more likely, beneath all that cheap plastic and cardboard. Either way, the thought wasn't entirely the warm and fuzzy one usually associated with presents.

"Uh, Lenalee…" Allen ripped his eyes away from the Velcro-like attraction of the present pyramid, only to collide eyes with a pleasantly smiling Lenalee.

"Yes, Allen-kun?" she hijacked the candy cane right out of his mouth, quickly placing the section Allen had just been sucking on right into her own mouth. All with a cute little giggle. Why did she_ insist_ on being so heart-thumpingly, diabetes-inducingly sweet?

All rational thought dissipated from Allen's head at that moment, evaporating into unknown somatic abyss. Dealing with females was already an area of expertise quite far out of his comfort zone, but dealing with females when they _pretended_ they weren't at all mad at you, when they plastered fake smiles on their face that made you go all wobbly at the knees and forced you to restrain every gland capable of injecting pleasure-producing hormones into the body… that was when Allen truly felt fear. Cold. Raw. Fear.

This was going to be a difficult punishment.

"Allen-kun?"

"Eh?"

He could've sworn he saw a twitch. Just above her right eyebrow.

"Why don't you go collect some wrapping paper?"

Despite the sweet little inclination of her voice, the vivacity of her command struck him rather bluntly.

"Sure, Lenalee!" he produced his most genuine, most sickeningly sincere chuckle as he turned in no particular direction, nerves making him act like an idiot. "There's nothing I'd love to do more than go collect some…"

He decided to abort that last comment. He could feel her eyes scouring into the back of his head anyways, probably carving the word "BAKA" right into the very grains of his skull. Yet somehow, Allen managed to stumble towards an area overtaken by gift wrap, managed to carry back about thirty rolls of the flimsy, not-at-all-cooperative-in-any-way rolls, and finally managed to dump it all in front of Lenalee with a winning grunt of exertion. He had truly outdone himself. Lenalee would have no choice but to agree.

"Was this _honestly_ the nicest wrapping paper you could find?"

Yet again, she had managed to find a flaw, this time in his manly showcase of wrapping paper collection.

"Well, whatever," she was suddenly unrolling a huge tube of blindingly metallic green wrapping paper, her hands skilfully slicing it into a more manageable size before she had a notebook placed within its centre, ready to be concealed and taped up tight. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

"Right," Allen grabbed a pen that had been harmlessly lying at the base of the present pyramid, his eyes for some unexplainable reason darting back and forth between Lenalee and the rolls of wrapping paper. He picked up an ugly flower tube of wrap (which, he noted, looked something similar to an old woman's choice in window curtains) and attempted in covering the pen in the revolting papery covering. However, the only thing Allen managed to create was a heaping ball of destroyed, crinkly wrapping, one that failed exceptionally at covering the pen in a way that could ever possibly invoke surprise in its future recipient. It was then that he decided wrapping paper was the _stupidest_ thing human beings had ever invented.

His colorfully-worded thoughts were interrupted by a fit of giggles.

Lenalee was laughing at him. That frilly, radiantly sweet laugh, the one that could turn honey to silk and silk to crystal, stunned and gleaming… that was the laugh all right. It introduced itself so shyly, with a lightness that instantly captivates, until slowly and ever so surely it builds in contagiousness, causing the heart to burst with a quality of laughter that could only ever be produced by the curious paralysis Lenalee Lee's laugh places upon the soul. However, with this particular "laugh" the thesis seemed to be directed solely at Allen, an unstated fact that somehow managed to make Lenalee sound cuter than hell as well as uncharacteristically sinister.

"Okay, look, I know I'm no pro when it comes to wrapping things—"

She was still laughing at him.

"And it's been quite a while since I last wrapped a present for anyone—"

Still. Laughing. He couldn't take it anymore, the urge to either swoon magnificently over her and give in to her immortal levels of charm or collapse onto his hands and knees and wail unmanly surrender. The latter seemed to be a choice that would produce both less shock and less deathly repercussions.

"GAHH, LENALEE HELP ME!"

"I'm sorry, Allen-kun," Lenalee's voice rang like hand-painted wind chimes, a graceful melody adding an airiness to it that quite forcefully threw Allen into an unstoppable stance of dumbfounded staring. "Here, let me show you…"

Her hands looked like they were performing a variation from a ballet, how they ever so gracefully sectioned the wrapping paper, how they so silkily smoothed it down and created crisp folds without a breath's hesitation… it was breathtaking. In a rather trivial, frivolous way.

"O-oh, you need tape—"

"Oh don't worry Allen-kun, I got it—"

Their hands touched. It was only a kiss of the skin, a taste-test of each other's true body heat, but their hands undeniably, for a sliver of a sliver of a second, touched.

But before his body could remember how to feel, before his vocal cords could even recuperate from their state of silent vibration, Lenalee had snapped her hand away with a fiery blush.

Allen now found himself suffering from the strange illness of wanting to touch her again. The smoothness of her skin, even if just for a fleeting, embarrassed second, had cast a spell on him, cursed him into a state of lusty, completely unacceptable thought patterns that normally didn't assault him at any given time. But now, for some reason… he found himself falling victim to feminine charm.

"Uh, Allen-kun, could you just, um…"

She was stranded holding a shimmering red ribbon across the top of her present, unable to tie it into a pristine bow without the whole thing coiling right off.

"Here…"

Carefully, cautiously, with all the apprehension one could muster while simultaneously performing an act of uncharacteristic courage, Allen stepped behind Lenalee, allowing his arms to gently slip through the space between her arms and waist; he placed his hands atop her still fingers with the refined trepidation of a butterfly, one that had landed atop a fragile, budding flower. Both remained flushed and frozen for longer then they probably should've, until Allen finally placed his finger securely atop the middle of the ribbon and Lenalee gave it a hasty tie.

But he didn't let go. He suddenly found himself quite comfortable, tangled within Lenalee's slim arms and curvy waist like this. Apparently Lenalee felt that way too, for she had placed her hands ever so lightly atop Allen's, blanketing them in a shy warmth that electrified both exorcists into states of perpetual, seemingly untemporary motionlessness. The closeness, the intimacy… it seemed unnervingly natural, to the point where it made even irony feel uncertain of its identity. It just felt so innately, so instinctively… _right_.

"Allen… kun…"

"Lenalee…"

Despite the carnivorous ferocity of the stillness, Allen found himself increasingly revelling in the coagulation of his and Lenalee's body heat. He was extremely tempted to just lay his chin atop her head, so lightly that she might not even notice his inexcusable proximity, when Lenalee suddenly let go of their trepid embrace, causing Allen to automatically do the same.

An insanely intimidating awkwardness had decided to make its debut after that.

"You squished the bow, Allen-kun."

The discomfort intensified.

"Oh."

Lenalee was giving him a look that, roughly translated, read similar to the 'Well you'd better do something about it or else I'm not going to very happy with you' look, causing Allen to grow emptier in the head than he had been a mere two seconds ago. _Dammit_, he hated when Lenalee forced him into those corners of inescapable discomfort—

Something snug was pressing against his lower back. The feeling was growing tighter and tighter, biting into the loose freedom of his shirt fabric till he had absolutely no other choice but to scoot closer to Lenalee; he was blissfully horrified to find that his choice had done nothing to inhibit the tightening's progression.

"What the—"

A glittering gold object was now racing around the duo, a seemingly endless strand of something red and shiny trailing after it in a dizzy game of chase. Allen quickly realized the red stringy stuff was the culprit binding him and Lenalee closer and closer together, and, with a feeling of both guilt-laden excitement and parental displeasure, found himself glaring at a glimmering Timcanpy.

"Uhhh…"

He could feel her heartbeat. It was light, and rather sporadic, but it also sent his blood on a vibrating journey through his body, warming his extremities in ways he never knew intimacy could fabricate let alone he himself fathom. This feeling… it… it was kinda…

"Timcanpy!"

The troublesome golem was now pulling rather aggressively at the red ribbon secured around his tail, making the inches between Allen and Lenalee evolve into centimetres, millimetres, millimillimeters… at this rate they'd be enduring a session of never-ending, ever-intensifying spooning.

"Jesus Tim, what the hell are you trying to do, suffocate us?" Allen craned his head over Lenalee just enough to make eye-contact with the effervescently flapping golem, producing his best, award-worthy look of parental displeasure a fifteen year old boy could possibly muster. Tim responded by changing his usual face into a heart.

"Timcanpy Cross Walker, you drop that ribbon right now or I'll—"

"L-L-L-L-LENALEEEEEEEE!"

Every cell in Allen's body exploded in one body-wrenching, mind-screwing eruption. That voice, that overly dramatic voice booming with sisterly complex so loud it was enough to turn eardrums to dust, had instantly amplified his anxiety to a level unfixable by nervous system standards…

"Nii-san…" Lenalee shakily stated, "Don't… panic—"

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF INNOCENCE IS ALLEN WALKER DOING WRAPPED AROUND YOUR BODY IN WAYS MOST CERTAINLY INTENDED TO STEAL YOUR PRECIOUS PURITY?"

Nerves were flying against the wall of his body, flinging themselves out of sheer, panic-stricken terror against his skull, his stomach, his skin, hands, feet, eyes, until Allen was certain he was doomed to die a most painful, brutal death. Right here. Right now. He was gonna die. He could hear it now, the screeching, bone-cringing process of etching **RIP: ALLEN WALKER** right into his headstone…

"Follow me!" Lenalee's voice, a vocal saviour shining through his thoughts of doomed fatality, whispered breathlessly into his ear, and, before Allen could stop thoughts of himself being thrown off the Order's roof into a pit of soba-deprived Kanda clones, he was being dragged at Dark Boot speed into the oblivious, bustling Order hallways to a place he could only hope would shower him in mild safety.

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**A/N: **Again, all reviews/faves/watches are greatly appreciated! Thanks so much everybody! I hope you all enjoyed, oh dear dear I really do... *hides in hole*


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Wow, chapter 3 guys! I can't believe all the support I'm getting, seriously, I keep having to pinch myself! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY IT MAKES ME! YOU ARE ALL SO WONDERFUL! AHH, I hope you all get a ton of super awesome gifts for Xmas ^^

Anyways, before leave you be, a few super quick Japanese translation notes on some words that appear in this chapter:

Mite = look

Matte = wait

Tanoshinde kudasai minna!

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"Lenalee, where are we—"

"JUST SHUT UP!"

As the hallways of his home sped past in a way that resembled gothic-black candy cane stripes, Allen felt his stomach perform a nauseating tango; the world was smearing, streaking, vacuuming away from him faster than his eyes cared to analyze properly, adding a sense of disillusionment to his already floppy frame.

An explosion of angelic white light suddenly murdered his eyesight, leading to instantaneous blindness as well as an unprecedented blast of cold air; they must've reached heaven. Heaven was probably the only place immune to Komui's authoritarian grudge anyway, a grudge that would most likely haunt Allen for the next fifty lives after this one. With pathetic desperation he began searching his glowing surroundings for puffy white clouds and angels.

He was forcefully reacquainted with stable, streakless reality with a heavy blow to the ass.

"OW!"

"Oh, stop your whining," Lenalee's voice had apparently reconnected with its previous sinister tone; she was now fumbling to disentangle herself from the red ribbon that still binded them together, part of which had braided itself chaotically within her right pigtail. "You should be thanking me for saving you."

How come girls _always_ seemed to be right? "Uh, thanks."

A seemingly deliberate jab in his stomach told him he had yet again stated the wrong thing.

They had finally managed to extricate themselves from the ribbon's unrelenting clasp (although Allen did so with the grace of a drunk), but Lenalee was still struggling to breakup her hair from the ribbon's charming coil.

"Do you, uh, want any—"

"I'm fine."

The way she had yelled the comment at him— although the volume of her voice had been more like a failed whisper— had made Allen feel rather jittery inside. It was as if he had actually found her resurrected anger at him _amusing_, or maybe even a little cute. After all, the way her stubby little pigtails waltzed about in an irritated fluster every time she raised her voice, or the way her eyes would sparkle apologetically even before she had concluded her pissed off sermon… it was all kinda cute. Yet, ironically enough, scary as hell.

"Hey, Lenalee?"

No answer. Allen viewed that as a golden opportunity to continue.

"Your hair looks pretty cute, all short like that."

She began to stand up, her rear facing Allen and successfully transporting him into a mindless era where all logic had turned extinct.

"I mean, now that it's finally grown out a little—"

A tsunami of snow came crashing into his face, and the earthquake known as Lenalee Lee went hastily stomping off into the distance, bitter aftershocks of crumbling snow following her pissed parade.

"Lenalee!"

Allen staggered to his feet woozily, desperation making his voice crack rather pathetically.

"Lenalee don't be mad!"

She continued marching away from Allen, her hand flinging viciously at the ribbon still hanging from her pigtail as it flirted with her face.

"I didn't mean it like that, honest!"

Without warning Lenalee kneeled to the snow-carpeted ground, her front half hidden from Allen; he came to an abrupt halt, the tip of his shadow just barely grazing over her hunched back.

"Lena—"

It literally happened all in one fast-paced, ill-tempered second; Lenalee jumping up, the snowball whipping straight at Allen's face, his back making a hefty acquaintance with the not-at-all-cushy tundra below him… it had probably all been faster than the panicked whirring of a hummingbird's wings. Way faster. He lay twitchingly still, snow-covered stars presenting his vision with the gift of vertigo.

A volcanic eruption of giggles polluted the air, an eruption of such logic-destroying force Allen could almost see butterflies and glitter accessorizing the pale winter sky. His hand, moving almost entirely of its own accord, began collecting snow.

A shriek that was neither too shocked nor too overly delighted reverberated from out of Lenalee's throat as a tightly packed sphere of snow hit her in the forehead, fluttering apart into sparks of downy ice fluff.

"Allen-kun!" Lenalee shouted, just narrowly dodging another cannon ball of snow. "That was _so_ not fair!"

"Huh? How so?"

He had blundered right into her trap flawlessly; a pellet of not-so-soft snow smashed into the bridge of his nose, sending his face into a snow-dimpled look of flabbergasted stupidity. Yet somehow, rather than cursing and gunning his assailant down with incohesive vulgarities like he normally would, he found himself laughing. He was _laughing_, and even slightly enjoying himself.

The snowball war continued for uncountable portions of time, brimming with fits of shrieking giggles and harmless crossfires of snow bullets. Allen had never felt his head feel so light and empty; it felt insanely, almost too guiltily good to focus on one simple, trivial event at hand, one that didn't result in inerasable casualties, crippling sacrifices, and irreversible, anxiety-laced trauma. It was such a devilishly rich, guilty pleasure.

"Allen-kun, in front of—"

Like a mind-rendering, reality contorting, out-of-body experience, Allen tripped over god knows what and landed squarely overtop a stunned Lenalee.

Her face instantly became a montage of reds— rose reds and blood reds and gently kissed reds— but it was her eyes… how the lilac irises had flooded the whites, dawning a color of milky violet that made the body forget to breath for just a second, that truly made Allen feel as if he were melting right overtop of Lenalee's perfectly crafted, perfectly feeling body. The moment seemed artificial, a fixed cliché that wasn't supposed to happen in real life despite the fact that it undeniably, uncontrollably_ was_.

And then it hit him, right square in a place he couldn't quite point out: that impulse to just seize the moment, take advantage of it and wring it dry of all opportunity – that moment of timeless, feelingless, overly-exaggerated _knowing_… that it was now or quite possibly never.

Allen felt his eyes interlock with hers, snatch onto their lilac sparkle with gruff smoothness, in which slowly, almost inevitably, his mouth leaned forward, eyes fell into false slumber, lips parted just a little more than barely, as he awaited the truly terrifying, truly life-changing collision of their lips…

A handful of snow was rubbed into his face by a sweetly giggling Lenalee, sending all of Allen's senses into early hibernation as they hastily hid their shameful externalities from the girl he had almost… almost…

"Allen-kun?"

Wiping the snow hotly from his face, Allen had rolled off of Lenalee and was now fiddling around with his dazed and majorly unresponsive body. "Yeah?"

"I'm cold."

Hands plopping lifelessly at his sides, Allen turned to look Lenalee in the eyes, although he quickly changed his mind halfway through the action and instead started to blush with uncontrollable potency.

"I'm colder."

She made such an adorable little noise at his remark; the way it had toiled with the air, the way it had escalated to such a blissfully high volume and then swooshed back down with deep buttery complexity… it made her voice seem capable of performing alchemy on sound waves. How could Lenalee _always_ display such complex, layered emotions? Without fail, they would always manage to send Allen's conscience into a seizure of varying intensities, until he felt pleasingly numb and had the urge to blurt unacceptable phrases. It was a mystery Allen truly had no hopes of ever cracking. Yet somehow, he always found himself pondering over its extroverted, indefinable data…

"Allen-kun, look!"

"Whu?"

"It's baby marshmallows!" Lenalee was beaming with regressive excitement, and, before Allen could snap his gaze away from her serenely flushing face, a tiny little snowflake sprinkled his cheek with chilly fluffiness.

"Marsh…" the word stuck in his throat, producing images he had no idea were his own till his mind had suddenly been overcome by an unstoppable, vividly hazy montage of memories. They electrified his mind, plastered themselves till his entire skull was wallpapered in their images, slyly forcing Allen to enter a state of delirious remembrance, an unstoppable vacation into the depths of childhood memories…

"_It's Christmas, Mana!"_

_A boy of six years old trudged over to the tall man before him, a look of unexplainable, uncontainable splendour illuminating his face. A smile made huge by oblivion, eyes coated in sparkles of naïve, ignorant childhood… they looked up at the man wearing the top hat and the trench coat as he continued to walk away into the distance. Allen hurried to catch up with the man, his puffy coat making him look like a cute fluffy marshmallow floating atop a cup of hot cocoa, one that had long grown cold and abandoned. _

"_Mana, it's Christmas!"_

_The little boy pictured candy canes towering above him, choked in glossy red ribbons of peppermint. He had never tasted a candy cane before. How wonderful it must be, to have the hot spice of peppermint launch your taste buds into a fit of overexerted glee! But candy canes weren't what Allen really wanted for Christmas._

"_Mana!"_

_Mana continued to stride forward, the grayness of the bleary pavement world below him mere stepping stones towards his unapparent destination. Why was Mana in such a rush? Perhaps he was off to buy little Allen a Christmas present?_

"_Mana, mite mite! The sky is crying little itty bitty marshmallows! Baby marshmallows, Mana! They're just little babies!"_

_The boy stuck out his tongue in exhilarating anticipation; he could hardly imagine what it'd be like, eating baby marshmallow tears! How sweet and light and fluffy they must taste! They would bounce and shiver into his mouth until they formed a melty little blanket right over his tongue, a state of sugary cuddliness Allen was very eager to experience. Hmm…. how would cuddliness taste, exactly?_

_Mana was far ahead now. Little Allen watched his bobbing top hat march further into the distance, flecks of snowy candy floss softening the image. The idea of baby marshmallows melting across his tongue was hastily discarded, forgotten with childlike innocence as the worry of being abandoned, being left-behind in the world of work and adults, terrorized little Allen's imagination. The ugliness of his left hand was pulsing madly within his mitten, telling him to go chase after Mana, go inform him of the brilliant candy world falling before them, go whisper the brilliant news…. it was Christmas! _

"_Mana, matte—"_

_The little boy fell face-forward onto the snow veiled pavement, his forehead smacking against its strong surface with a star-producing jolt. Allen looked upon the melting marshmallows with choking eyes, eyes that drooled squiggly tears and splattered their warmth onto the heartless, lonely pavement. The poor pavement, always being stepped on and kicked at with boots and heels… no wonder it always felt so hard and lonely…_

"_Mana…." Allen craned his neck upwards, tried to spy the comforting silhouette belonging to his guardian… but he was nowhere in sight. "Mana…"_

_The marshmallows aren't very soft, Mana. Why aren't they soft, Mana?_

_Maybe the marshmallows were lonely too… they always had to watch their friends falling just out of reach beside them, just out of reach before they smattered, shattered to the ground, dead and gone, gone, gone…_

_Warm tears oozed across Allen's face, coating his cheeks in a glistening icing of salty warmth. Allen wondered why tears were so warm all the time. He hated tears. He found them quite annoying, for they never accomplished what you wanted them to; they were simply thieves, brilliant little thieves who stole heat from the body and then tried to comfort you with their fake riches and splendours. Stupid, stupid annoying tears…_

"_Mana…"_

_All little Allen…_

"_Mana where are you?"_

… _really wanted for Christmas…_

"_Please wait for me, Mana!"_

…_was a simple…_

"_Mana!"_

… _little…_

"Mana!" Allen blurted the name, the words rolling off his tongue with raw, stiff naturalness. The baby marshmallows were still toppling down, melting onto his face with their sticky, sloppy wetness, replicating chilled tears that he had no inclination to wipe away. Stupid marshmallows…

"Allen-kun…" Lenalee's warm breath, with unexpected delicacy, brushed across his cheek. She had manoeuvred her body in such a way so that she was facing Allen on her side, and, with what seemed like concerned affection, what seemed like genuine, caring warmth, she clutched his arm against her chest, nuzzling it reassuringly. "Are you okay?"

He didn't really know how to answer. He hated when stupid memories like this would pop up unexpectedly, instantly making his mood turn stale. Yet, on the same token, he never wanted the memories to end; they always ended too soon, like a movie cut off at the base of the climax.

"Allen—"

"I love baby marshmallows."

Lenalee sat up a little, her eyes blinking in minute shock.

"I love them," Allen blurted the statement again, before turning his eyes to meet Lenalee's twinkling lilac spheres. "But only when you're around, Lenalee. Only when you're with me."

What the hell was he saying? He was acting as if marshmallows _traumatized_ him.

A soft, newborn smile formed across Lenalee's lips. "Taste one."

"Huh?"

"Taste one, Allen-kun."

He watched Lenalee, as if desperately noting an intricate tutorial, as she jabbed her tongue into the frosty air and captured a loose snowflake atop its moist pink platform. Her expression seemed to be laughing with ecstasy, a type of ecstasy teenagers weren't supposed to experience, that they were supposed to have locked away tight in the chests of their memories the moment they had left childhood behind; yet Lenalee seemed to be fully revelling in the prohibited feeling. Allen stuck out his tongue.

Almost immediately a snowflake fluttered towards him, landing gracefully atop his tongue in one delicate descent. He sucked the juices right out of the victimized snowflake, expecting to experience a tasteless, watery bore, but instead, the snowflake tasted…. it tasted…

"It's sweet," Allen looked at Lenalee, his eyes now mimicking her previous look of astonishment. "Lenalee, it tastes sweet."

"I know," she scooted closer to him, her chin just barely hovering above his shoulder as her lips grazed his ear. "Nii-san always told me that snowflakes turn to baby marshmallows when you eat them with someone you care about."

Her comment struck him, in a way he wasn't exactly prepared to counter emotionally. Lenalee could make anything seem better than it actually was, to the point where you almost became_ addicted_ to her calming way of manipulating the bores, the grievances of life. Allen found himself resting his head lightly atop hers, which he now noticed had decided after all to rest ever so gently atop his shoulder. Her hair tickled his neck in a way that made him turn drowsy… her breaths teased his skin with thoughts of warmth temptingly different from his own… and the way her cheekbone poked against his shoulder blade… felt perfect. Scarily, scarily perfect.

They watched the baby marshmallows swoosh and somersault to the ground for a length of time one couldn't even consider time, when Lenalee finally lifted her head from its resting place.

"We should probably get back to wrapping," she smiled, though Allen could've sworn a note of disappointment spiced her tone.

"As much as I _love_ wrapping," Allen muttered, his eyes turning into slits of highly concentrated, life-depending thought, "I think I'd end up dead if I dared go back to that… that _hell_ room…"

"Allen-kun, my brother won't _actually _kill you!"

"But he'll torture me for the remainder of my life, yes."

Lenalee gave a nervous little giggle before he suddenly felt her hand delicately slip over his, its warmth making his heart thump that much more noticeably. Hell, she was becoming a hazard to his health…

"Well, don't stay out here for too much longer, okay?" her voice oozed like sun-kissed honey, goldenly viscous and thick with syrupy sweetness. It was almost like an auditory sugar rush, hearing her voice when it spoke with such a gentle, pure-hearted demeanour.

"Sure, Lenalee."

He secretly yelled out when she removed her hand from his, got up, and started to wander back towards the Order, the red ribbon still streaming from her pigtail and her skirt dancing with lazy liveliness as it surfed the wind's waterless waves. Allen was left to stare, in places he probably was not allowed to as defined under the five billion commandments in the **Preserving Lenalee Lee's Chastity **doctrine.

But _damn_…

She sure did look good in a miniskirt.

The cheerful warmth one could only experience during the Christmas season greeted Lenalee with exceptional exuberance as she entered the Order, her cheeks experiencing a mild temperature shock as a blast of warmth devoured their coldness. Everyone was bustling about with such seasonal vigour, transforming the walls, the ceiling, every ounce of tile space available with Christmas decorations of all shapes and designs. It was a sight that just had to make you smile.

"Oi, Lenalee!"

Lenalee looked ahead, and spotted an apron-clad Lavi carrying a rather heavy-looking box; she hastily picked up her pace till she was right in front of the spiky-haired exorcist, an inquisitive expression now animating her face.

"What's this?" she eyed the box curiously, a plenitude of Chinese characters failing to escape her searching eyes. "A present?"

"Yup," Lavi gazed at her with a sort of overly knowing glint, a gaze that made him look as if he had already mapped out her reaction in advance and was now waiting for the result. "It's for Allen. From the Asian Branch. Have you seen him around?"

"Asian Branch?" a warning flag shot up in Lenalee's mind, for reasons she didn't particularly care to interpret. "Well that's nice of them all, giving him such a big gift like thi—"

"It's from Lou Fa."

Her heart had forgotten how to beat. It just sat there, motionless and stunned, as she dared not inhale a breath or else risk sending it into a deeper state of comatose. "Lou… Fa…"

Thoughtlessly, or perhaps with thought that lacked any explicit reason, Lenalee snatched the parcel from Lavi, her heart now regaining its ability to beat; it was beating at an alarming, irritated pace, pumping her blood out in heated fits as it morphed into a flustered, throbbing tantrum. It made Lenalee angry. It made her angry, how she had just stolen the box right of Lavi's hands, how she had felt a bolt of nerve-induced lightning shoot down her spinal cord at the mentioning of Lou Fa's name. It made her so god damn angry how she was getting all flustered and pissed off and irritated at the world over something so ridiculously petty and in some way associated with Allen. Why should it matter? It wasn't like she was…

"I'll take it to him," she declared the statement more to herself than to Lavi, who had a winning expression smeared across his face. She chose to ignore it.

"Lavi, I'll take it to Allen."

"By all means," Lavi raised his hands defensively, unsure of whether or not Lenalee was planning on lashing out at him with feminine fists of furry or marching away in a heated fit of unstated rage. Both seemed rather lethal.

Lenalee, however, smiled at him, though she hoped the snide little twitch above her eye had escaped the Bookman's incredibly observant gaze. Somehow she doubted it, but, despite that, she continued to exude a charming conceal of sweetness.

"Have fun cooking with Miranda, Lavi!"

She didn't even know if he responded or not, for a sinister, raging maelstrom of evil thoughts was storming in her brain, swirling up magnificent concoctions of deeply buried female revenge tactics Lenalee had never even known existed within her friendly skull. But…

She had a plan. A most brilliant, brilliant plan…

Deeming the room clear of any snooping little tattletales, Lenalee popped open a black permanent marker, its potent, acidic licorice scent only further fuelling her hardly believable, fury-coated thoughts as she maliciously began to scribble out the previously written instructions; with insanely neat, perfectly replicated Chinese characters she began to write, quietly reading aloud her work of ruthless, female war-waging art as she went:

"To… Kanda…" the screech of the marker added a nice touch of drama, "Lots and lots of… love… Lou… Fa."

She smiled at her treachery. Evil demons were cackling in her head, applauding her on her first ever act of vengeful girl-on-girl attack. This was bloody brilliant. No one would ever accuse her of such outlandish mail tampering, not in a million years.

Putting on her most innocent, most sincere smile of overly sweet proportions, Lenalee spun around, package in hand, and skipped off a little too eagerly towards Kanda's room, a playful, toiling hum pressing past her lips as both pigtails and red ribbon sprung about in scheming excitement.

* * *

**A/N: **Whoa holy crap, for some reason I was having a few issues with editing this, I dunno why. So I hope its okay... really...  
And actually, the memory Allen had of him and Mana was a random thing I had started writing thoughtlessly when I was experiencing an anxiety attack a few weeks ago, so I was really glad I had found a home for it in one of my stories!

And oooh, whats this? Lenalee has a dark feminine side? OHO~

Reviews/faves/watches are always welcome and GREATLY appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** OH NO I DIDN'T GET THIS OUT IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS! I'M SO SORRY YOU GUYS! *cries miserably* I tried so so hard, I even had a schedule out telling me when to write and edit everything... but of course, with the holidays comes unprecedented (yet totally inevitable) "tasks", and I was a sufferer of such holiday evilness. But, nonetheless, I have finally... FINALLY... gotten the final chapter up! And holy crap, am I ever grateful for all the wonderful reviews I've been getting! Seriously guys, it's the best Xmas present a writer could ask for! I love you all!

Oh, and I realize that in the last chapter, Lenalee was a tad unlike herself... that was my intention. I figured "Meh, its Xmas, why not?", so yeah, that's my reasoning. Plus, I do believe every girl, no matter how kind, has the potential for evil feelings of girly jealousy, ne? HEHE!

And with that, I give you the final chapter to my Xmas series... ENJOY! *crosses fingers*

* * *

"L-L-Lavi, it's beeping! It's beeping! I don't—"

"It means they're done, Miranda."

"Oh… right… I'll just, um…"

"Grab some oven mitts, Miranda."

"Yes, Lavi."

Allen could've told Miranda her cookies were done._ Way_ over done. A black snaking mist wafting past his face provided a wonderful preview for what the cookies were sure to look like. Splendid.

For about an hour now Allen had been hiding out under a table near Miranda and Lavi's baking station, sucking on his tenth candy cane (Finders seemed to be freely giving them away every tinsel-covered corner you turned) and pondering various thoughts surrounding food and…. and Lenalee. Why was he thinking of Lenalee?

"I'M SO SORRY LAVI!"

Miranda's signature composition of vocal-cord snapping, cacophonous wailing had begun harmonizing the dining hall with silence-murdering audacity, successfully alerting everyone that she had yet again failed with distinction at making a slightly edible pan of cookies.

"They're not…. _that_ bad, Miranda," Lavi was trying his best to sound encouraging. "I mean look, you can actually see a brown spot on this cookie! That's one hell of an accomplishment I'd say!"

Allen couldn't help but snicker; seeing Lavi pull words of kindly therapy out of his ass that did absolutely nothing to convince Miranda of the unconvincable was just _too_ priceless.

"Here, now all we need is a little icing sugar…" the young Bookman-to-be was now drenching Miranda's cookies in powdery-white sugar dust, effectively giving them a sort of off-putting, untantalizing cow-hide appearance. "Voila! Now they look like little balls of heaven!"

They looked more like angel droppings to Allen, but who was he to talk, taking refuge under the cutting board table like this?

"Miranda, I'll bet you they look _so_ damn good, even Yuu would eat em!"

"NO! NO HE'LL MURDER ME!"

"Okay you're right…. then, uhh... Allen! Allen will eat em!"

A lethal hiss scraped past Allen's teeth, his mind filling with a depraved orchestration of curses and insults dedicated specially to Lavi; he backed himself further into the table's shadow canopy.

"Come on Allen, I know you want some!" Lavi was now bending over grinning at him, the cookies skating to an unceremonious halt at the bottom edge of the pan as he swung it before Allen's steely gray gaze.

"I'm not supposed to be here, idiot!"

"I'm sorry, you said you wanted the whole tray?" Lavi's voice had adopted an adorably annoying sing-song tone, "By all means Walker—"

It could've been a hot rock massage for the crotch, _if_ it hadn't been for the dust winds of sugar whipping him in the face as the tray of cookies were dumped right over top his lap. They ambushed both him and the floor with clumsy ferociousness, bathing them in crumbs of over-baked blackness that gave a meek prick every time you lay a bit of pressure on them. Good god, Miranda had _really_ outdone herself in creating identity-confused cookies this time...

Hauling himself from out under the table Allen stood before Lavi's awaiting figure, a typical look of try hard, manly intimidation etched across his face as he eyed the red-headed exorcist coldly. A cookie was still huddled within the crook of his hand; suddenly, Miranda's failed pastries had become the perfect weapons for smashing the future Bookman's face in with.

"Is there a problem Moyashi-kun?"

"Why don't _you_ try one, huh Lavi?" his voice seemed to be mocking Lenalee's earlier tones of malice. "You did help in making them after all—"

"Piss off Allen—"

"Oh no, I _insist_—"

Just as Allen shoved one of the edible paperweights into Lavi's protesting mouth, a voice, one that mimicked the chastising delicacy of an angel yet could simultaneously seduce the devil, echoed about the room: Lenalee's.

"Allen-kun?"

"Crap—"

Allen launched himself back beneath the table's obscuring depths, the thoughts of wrapping paper and insanely shimmery ribbon wrapping his brain up in one mushy pile of neurotic anxiety; Lenalee had come for him. She had come to drag him to his deathbed, its depressing features concealed in cheery Christmas wrapping and dotted with sickeningly bright bows and ribbons, but he wasn't fooled. His only chance of being saved from the enslaving whips of gift wrapping duty was to futilely take shelter beneath the cutting table, a terrifyingly unreliable, low-success rate final resort that he had no choice but to take.

"Huh? I thought I just saw Allen-kun with you…" the innocence dripping from her voice was one hell of a weapon, almost brainwashing Allen into surrendering to her presence right then and there; but he stood strong, pinching Lavi in the back of the leg as a reminder that he was "not" there.

"Uh, haha, what are you talking about, Lenalee?" Lavi's voice was losing its masculine edge.

"Your lying skills need a little work, Lavi—"

With ridiculously intense caution Allen began crawling his way away from Lenalee and Lavi, swerving around burnt cookie blockades that resembled terribly cracked chunks of magma throughout the process. A rather odd pang of guilt was making his movements feel rather heavy, a feeling he had not anticipated would start attacking him as he fled for a new haven of derisory safety.

And then, he found it; it was only three feet away, the safety of a new table, one that was out of earshot and completely out of range from where Lenalee now stood. The little sanctuary of heaven seemed to be calling out to Allen, welcoming him into its protective shadows with pleasant, reassuring gestures that made him certain he was going delusional. He pounced with jungle-animal swiftness, soaring through the air and landing heavily on his shoulder as he nearly tumbled out of hiding; but the pain, the aches of escape he had suffered— they were all worth it. He was officially safe from Wrapping Duty!

"Allen-kun."

With a less than masculine shriek Allen jumped from his position of relieved thankfulness, ramming his head against the top of the table with a sickening bang; his eyes began spontaneously reproducing newborn tears. "Owww…"

"Allen-kun, I can see you."

He followed the voice (and the giggle that accompanied it) to its place of origin: behind him. With a gulp, he locked eyes with an upside down Lenalee, who was now hanging over the table and smiling at him with a look that suggested his demise was close at hand.

"Le… L-Lenalee! I, uh…"

"You can come out now," the sugar-coated suggestion was tempting… way too tempting. Allen found himself succumbing to feminine indulgence with shameful eagerness.

"Lenalee, I swear I wasn't—"

She placed a finger to his lips, a gesture that managed to both successfully murder every word coming from his mouth and conjure a brilliant stain of bright red across his cheeks. "Finish the wrapping, and I _might _consider giving you some of my Christmas cookies… kay?"

Lenalee's... _Christmas cookies_? Allen was officially, blindly intrigued.

"Lead the way!"

The hallways were kidnapped by strands of tinsel in every possible color and shimmer intensity, making Lenalee's back the only thing safe for the eyes to rest on without them falling victim to explosions of fuzzy dots. She had apparently managed to remove the red ribbon from her pigtail, and her hair was shimmering with the mysterious beauty of seasick silk. And the way her skirt winked and frolicked about her thighs… well, nothing had changed about _that_ satisfying eye indulgence.

"Hey, Allen-kun?"

The way she had softly uttered his name… it seemed more entrancing than usual.

"Yeah?"

There was a moment of silence, crisply broken up by the sound of Lenalee's sharp heeled footsteps and Allen's clunkier ones. "Oh… never mind."

"Oh, okay." He felt like maybe, just maybe, he had been tested. He had been tested on his emotional perception and skills at picking up implicit female cues. His mind fumbled around in the hopes of devising some sort of acceptable comment, but after five minutes of opening and closing his mouth with a look of indecisive stupidity, Allen figured he had failed the test.

And then, a thought struck him.

"Hey, Lenalee—"

The fleeting thought, however, was heinously skewered by an auditory earthquake of heavily depressed, tear-laden, snot-snivelling chanting, amplified to a head-bursting level by the powers of a megaphone. Some kind of progression was going on, one that appeared to consist of a parade of losers devoted to trudging about in depressed grievance as they injected themselves with painful memories of deceased individuals. An uncomfortable, instinctive sensation in the pit of Allen's stomach was telling him danger was fast approaching.

A voice began crying into the megaphone, a voice that was so thickly steeped in overdramatized grief one couldn't _not_ distinguish it as belonging to a highly unstable, highly dangerous Komui.

"LEST WE FORGET—"

All Allen could see was blackness. A huge, sluggishly advancing mob of miserable, pupil-enlarging blackness that transformed the hallways into a massive black hole.

"—THE DAYS WHEN LENALEE LEE—"

Komui's face, half concealed under a black hooded cloak, became visible, as well as the faces of various other miserable looking science department workers, all of which were holding tiny white candles that cast their faces into an eerie mask of illuminated shadow.

"—LIVED A LIFE OF PURITY AND CHASTITY—"

The monotone, skin-paling chanting was growing progressively louder, the depression mob fast approaching.

"—UNTOUCHED BY THE DEVILISH HANDS—"

Allen's nervous system had officially entered a state of emergency, dispatching every soldier of conscriptable epinephrine to immediately assist in preparing him for a death dash.

"—OF ALLEN WALKER!"

Fiery hot panic. That was all Allen could feel as his feet rocketed towards the gift wrapping room, the closest area of semi-safety his bulging eyes could target in the midst of his escape. His body was moving on its own now, slamming shut the door, barricading the room with every piece of sturdy looking item possible; he had entered refugee hideout mode, a situation that couldn't even be described by the adjectival phrase "scared shitless". His body was so fucking terrified, it didn't even know what terror _was_ anymore.

"Pull yourself… together…" heavy breathing interrupted his spoken thoughts, as Allen crumpled to the floor with a gelatinous flail. It was only now poking at his brain, the facts of survival he would eventually have to come to terms with. What was he going to eat? To drink? And, and bathing, what about that? And good god, FOOD! He wouldn't have any food!

Life was no longer worth living.

But, as a line-up of worthless, pointless thoughts slid through his head, thoughts that oozed about like mutant slime ready to eat his brains right out, Lenalee came into his head. Lenalee. Lenalee and her… her eyes…. a-and her smile…. her ass…. he was gonna miss seeing those beautiful sights on a daily basis. _Really_ miss them. Oh, how he had taken them for granted…

His soul screamed bloody murder when he felt an object fall atop his foot: it was a box. A wrapped box. A really nicely wrapped box. With a bow. And oh fuck… it had his name on it. Allen Walker. That _was_ his name, right? He didn't even know anymore.

Allen lifted himself up with a stiff grunt of self-pity, eyeing the gift at his feet with the expression of an old, superstitious philosopher who feared he had been given a pristinely wrapped bomb. Nonetheless, his childish side commanded him to grab the box and open it up with gleeful, needlessly hyper euphoria, an order Allen performed with lavish exceptionality as he hobbled mindlessly to his feet.

The wrapping was ripped off with carnivorous ferocity, the lid hurled into oblivion, the tissue paper dissected from the gift's innards all in one breathless, elatedly immature second, until the nucleus of the present, the heart of the entire thoughtfully wrapped gift, was staring him right in the face.

He

Had

Officially

Gone to heaven.

There, ever so carefully arranged in the palm-sized gift box, was an abacus of perfectly skewered, perfectly shaped dango. And not just any plain old, savoury-flavored dango. It was… it was _chocolate_ dango. With chocolate glaze smothered delectably overtop each little ball of deliciousness. Allen's mouth had morphed into a slimy waterfall of glistening, frothing saliva at the sight; he _had_ to be dreaming.

"Sweet goodness in a box…" his brain was no longer a functioning organ. He began petting the dango obsessively, a look of crystallized mesmerisation illuminating his eyes. Perhaps being confined to the wrapping room wouldn't be so harsh after all—

"ALLEN-KUN!"

His soul snapped back into his body with a jerky, reality-slapping crack. He turned around, although every fibre of every muscle had advised otherwise, until he was facing a trembling-mouthed, glossy-eyed Lenalee. She had apparently broken into his hideout with disturbing ease, and, standing tall and unnervingly still, Allen watched as her upper body began to rumble, shivering under the icy castigate of upset that lashed with apathetic wretchedness at her previously calm state of mind. The single tear that slipped past her eyelashes and slid to a snugly halt at the corner of her mouth was all he needed to inform him that he had officially broken some kind of sacred rule, one that he had no idea even existed.

"How… how could you?" the words slid from her mouth, bombing the air with their hidden, barely audible toxicity.

"Whu—"

"THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR CHRISTMAS PRESENT!"

Even with the primary cause of her brewing fit spanking him directly in the face, Allen was unable to comprehend the gravity of his grave error. "Lenalee, I—"

"I worked so hard, Allen-kun," Lenalee's voice was almost invisible, just barely grabbing hold of the most malnourished of sound waves before it dissipated into unheard abyss. "I wanted it to be… to be _perfect_."

To speak, or not to speak? That was the question Allen decided to distract himself with as he tried to ignore Lenalee's magnetic look of dejection. He rather fearfully chose to go with the former option.

"I'm sorry."

Silence.

"I'm so sorry."

Silence colder than death.

"Lenalee, I—"

"Just forget it."

With a snivel that sliced Allen's soul into pieces, Lenalee whipped herself around and was raging for the door, although not fast enough for Allen to miss the glaze of tears that was now marinating her face in salty despair. He went to grab her wrist, but she flung it away with a fierce shrug.

"Merry Christmas, Allen-kun."

"Lenalee!"

The door slammed shut, and Allen could almost see his lost expression in its non-existent reflection, staring back at him with a look of twisted, soul-euthanizing disgust. He knew there was only one way to fix this problem. It was a solution he had no experience in whatsoever, a solution that would take every ounce of his bravery and force him to shine in ways he had always shied away from in the past. But if it was for Lenalee's sake… he'd suck it up.

"Lenalee..." flinging open the door Allen reacquainting himself with the outside world of the Order, his feet adopting a speed perfectly suited for catching up with raging, pissed off women. His mind was a chaotic whirl, one that was both a confusing concoction of foreign emotions and a determined mindset of fortitude. But no matter what, he was _not_ going to screw this up. He might've screwed up Lenalee's cookies. He might've screwed up in wrapping. He might've even royally screwed up in complimenting her hair. But this time, Allen Walker was _determined_ not to screw up. Just once, he was going to get things right.

"Lenalee, wait!" Allen hollered her name desperately, her silhouette quite a ways ahead of him now; the sight somehow supplied him with an extra bit of push. "Lenalee—"

"Oi, Allen!" Lavi had appeared magically in front of him, a tray of actually identifiable, sweet-smelling cookies propped in his hands. "You gotta try these, Miranda actually didn't burn em—"

"Get outta my way dammit!"

The pan of cookies marking Miranda's first successful baking endeavour were ripped out of Lavi's secure grasp and smattered to the floor, filling the hall with a metallic screeching sound that echoed on endlessly.

"Lenalee!" her pink-ruffled skirt, her pigtails swinging with such attitude, they were getting closer and closer, almost within sprinting reach—

"YOU GOD DAMN MOYASHI!"

Allen shrieked pathetically as he just barely ducked the blade of Mugen, which had arrogantly cut off his trail with a majestic glint starved for murder. Apparently Kanda had scheduled _now_ as the perfect time to try and dice him into tiny bits of squealing moyashi flesh.

"Holy God—" the world was starting to blur around him as Allen continued to race towards the angered Lenalee, a few darkly cloaked 'Lenalee Lee Purity' mourners being yanked viciously out of the way as he flew past at energy-sapping speed. "Lenalee, please wait!"

"ALLEN WALKER, WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!" a loudspeaker was screaming threateningly behind him, the voice of Komui filling the halls with sinister death sentences that were surely going to become reality if he dared stop his sprint.

"Dammit dammit _dammit_!" Allen clenched his teeth firmly, the perfectly shaped figure of Lenalee only a few meters away from him now. He _was not_ going to screw this up. He was going to prove to Lenalee that he _did_ have the ability to do at least one thing right. Even if he'd be killed immediately after.

"Lenalee!" he came to an abrupt, blood-purging stop, breathing laboriously before a red-eyed, frowning Lenalee. Even in such a state, Allen couldn't help but marvel at her undeliberate cuteness. "Lenalee, I—"

"WALKER!"

"I—"

"MOYASHI!"

"I—"

"ALLEN YOU ASSHOLE!"

Talking had apparently become an unattainable option, now that Allen had become the most popular topic for everyone's bitchy yelling. And, on top of that, the glare Lenalee was lasering him with wasn't helping to reduce his rapidly intensifying feeling of nausea either. It was, however, powerful enough to completely vaporize every neuron capable of logical thought in Allen's brain at that moment, making his mind turn utterly blank.

"Uh…"

A brilliant flash of gold streaked past Allen's nose, zooming up to hover just above his and Lenalee's heads within a nanosecond's time.

"Timcanpy!"

The golden golem was clutching something deviously within his jaws, something that made Allen's entire body reverse its actions in one nauseating, skin-tightening, drop-dead mind-erasing second: mistletoe.

"Timcanpy you get that out of your mouth right—"

The blood-chilling 'sling' of Mugen being drawn led to instantaneous silence from Allen; his assassins were obviously ready to kill him, and he didn't imagine they'd be patient about the process either. He looked Lenalee directly in the eyes, her orbs of lilac crystal dancing with all the emotions of the psychological rainbow, and that's when he knew… if he was gonna die, right then and there, what the hell did it even matter?

Hands twisting with rapid awkwardness around her waist, Allen lifted Lenalee right off her feet, dipping her to a gravity-mocking level as he delved into the sweet nectar of her eyes. He had no idea what he was doing, not a clue in hell as he smashed his lips atop hers with heart-murdering, blood-stunting swiftness, their softness colliding with his in one sparkly, internal firework flare. He could feel the tenseness of her mouth melt into his, taste the teardrops of rage and anger and sadness coating her lips, invigorating them to move in ways he was sure felt somewhat enjoyable. He figured this was the case, at least, once Lenalee began kissing him back rather forcefully.

However, almost as soon as their lips had developed an intensifying pattern of lip fondling, Lenalee had pulled away from his face, her cheeks burning with the color of shocked pleasure. Allen let his eyes smile for a moment, before his own signature smile spread intuitively across his face.

"Allen Walker…" Lenalee breathed, an almost breathless accent to her voice.

"Yes?"

An ardent slap on the cheek sent Allen into a spiralling mindset of mystification, introducing him to a make-believe world most sinful in nature. This heavenly place, filled with the searing wraths of feminine bloodlust, would irresistibly seduce the mind into a lecherous coma, leaving all men in an idiotic state of maddening inanity. Such a place could only be accessed, of course, with the assistance of wonderfully attractive women, and only when they blatantly showcased their loving dissatisfaction with you, both physically and emotionally, in a way that was both terrifying and down-right sexy. However, despite being introduced to such a blood-rushing environment, Allen decided to think of the slap as being an ironic reward for him _finally_ making the right choice, a choice in itself that represented his newfound ability to inconsistently make good decisions. Cross would've been so proud…

"Hey, Allen-kun?"

He shot her a questioning look, his mind now a puddle of mushy, uselessly disabled neuron goop.

Lenalee wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his ear just next to the delicate warmth of her lips. "Run."

"Eh?"

Before he could even piece together the severity of his situation, Allen Walker was being escorted through the traffic of the Black Order hallways at the hand of Lenalee Lee, the girl who had stolen his lip virginity, stolen his heart, and, on top of it all, had saved him from a most certain, most grizzly death. Just in time for Christmas, too.

"What would you do without me, Allen-kun?" Lenalee giggled the words back at him, her face dancing with the movement of sweet laughter.

All Allen could do was blush; he really _was_ a raging idiot without Lenalee by his side. He was beyond thankful to her for saving him from the pit of murderers now yelling his name rather violently behind them, and… well, for accepting his inexperienced lip service beneath Tim's kindly display of mistletoe. He was thankful to her for making him realize, although rather harshly at times, how much of an idiot he really was, proving to him just how much maturity he still had yet to envelop before he could consider himself a respectable man. And of course, he was eternally grateful to Lenalee for her endless offerings of love and affection, actions that always seemed to insert newfound meaning into everything Allen said and did, making his duty as an exorcist that much more meaningful and the purpose of his life that much more crucial in complexity. God, he was thankful for a lot of things of Lenalee's…

And that's when he realized…

How could he _not_ be madly in love with Lenalee Lee?

* * *

**A/N:** THE END! hehe, actually not quite... I will be adding one super short little extra ending thing very soon here (its already written, I just need to edit), and it deals with Kanda. Yes, our beloved Yuu-chan! :D Lets just say it'll kinda help explain why he's so pissed at Allen in this chapter...

And actually, I've made chocolate dango before. it is both extremely difficult to make and extremely delicious to eat :D

But anyways, its been fun guys! I still can't believe people liked this fanfic of mine! I AM STILL IN DISBELIEF! *AA* But I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas ^^

All reviews/faves are EXTREMELY WELCOME AND APPRECIATED!


	5. Bonus Chapter

**A/N: **Okay, since I was a terrible person and didn't get the final chapter to this up in time for Xmas, I decided to upload the final "bonus" chapter right away! So ENJOY~

* * *

_**Earlier that day…**_

Twas the night before Christmas

When all through the Order

Not a creature was stirring…

Except for…

…

Kanda.

It just sat there…. motionless. Still. Immobile. Like a raving idiot. It didn't deserve to sit in front of Yuu Kanda's doorstep with such petty arrogance, all full of itself and stewing in cockiness: a box.

With a warrior cry that was extremely unnecessary Kanda gave the mysterious "box" at his door a brutal kick, managing to blow a hole right through its side that sent it catapulting down the hall with such speed that, if any unlucky passerby were to be hit by it, they would surely be spending Christmas in the hospital. However, the flying box performed a flight free of any turbulence, and landed with a brilliant triple flip fifty feet from where it had initially crash-landed.

Yet still… even after it had been removed from his immediate sight…

It just sat there…

Not… moving.

Kanda felt like he was being mocked. He had to be, actually. No one was dense enough to _dare_ give him one of those abominable, insanely ridiculous pieces of shit called Christmas presents. It just didn't happen, for the safety of everyone at the Order.

But what in the fucking hell…?

He didn't know why he did it. He assumed it had been from all the blindingly reflective strands of crap plastered over every inch of the Order's walls (including atop Kanda's door, in which it was quickly disposed of and secured around the decorator's neck with rapid efficiency), yes, that was definitely it. It had begun by fucking with his eyesight, and now it was fucking with his mind, making him do things that made him so incredibly pissed off, Mugen started to glow with instinctive psychic rage.

But the most shocking of things occurred when dear Kanda stalked towards his dear "box" and, with a habitual 'chi', picked it up, an act of pure, drop-dead, immensely disbelieving rarity so extremely out of character, it even frightened the_ box_ he now had in his hands.

"To Kanda…" his voice dripped with venom as he read aloud the "box's" label. "Lots and lots of… chi!"

Tipping it over, Kanda allowed the box's contents to topple to the ground, and quickly discovered that what was inside was none other than cookies. But not just any old cookies… they were

Heart

Shaped

Cookies.

As if they were living, breathing organisms of vast and catastrophic destruction, Kanda had whipped out Mugen and diced every cookie into a mini mountain of fine sugary dust, an act of overly-violent cookie bullying that would have definitely made Lou Fa break down and cry if she had been present at that very moment.

However, there was _one_ cookie that managed to survive Kanda's merciless annihilation…

The cookie just stared up at him, its icing shining in such a way as to awaken the duel mode deep within Kanda, an entirely masculine fight response that was almost impossible to turn off in the moody exorcist once activated. This cookie was no doubt the ring-leader, the sergeant of them all…

Because on it, carefully piped and ever so gracefully placed were the words **ALLEN WALKER**. An explosion ripped through Kanda's head, obliterating the little supply of reason he had left.

"Moyashi…" the tsunami of godly destruction brewing within him was on the brink of being unleashed (as made obvious by the immense twitching of his face).

And then, the storm struck.

Having no immediate target to unleash the storm's wrath upon Kanda immediately began slicing away at the wrap and cookies before him, a tornado of homeless, petrified paper shavings and terminally broken cookie crumbs flying about in the heated currents of Kanda rage. But Kanda didn't care, he didn't care how much of a moronic idiot he looked like, didn't care if he was acting like a psychotically-charged bipolar lunatic to the poor homemade cookies (or what _were_ homemade cookies two seconds ago) at his feet. All he cared about was…

"Kanda?"

He shot his visitor a look that ensured they would die if they dared breathe another word. However, the potency of his murder face fizzled a little as he realized it was Lenalee before him, her eyes little orbs of pondering lilac.

"What… do _you_ want?" he fumed the words with what he _thought_ was well-contained malice; he was twitching from the effort of it.

"I, uh…" a dangerous little smile spread across Lenalee's face, a smile that Kanda, although obliged not to, would have most definitely sliced right off her face if she had been anyone else. But, she continued, seemingly well aware of the weapon she was choosing to toil with.

"Hurry up."

"I didn't know you were supposed to demolish Christmas presents like that," Lenalee pouted, a twinkle still firing her eyes. "That _can't_ be very good feng shui…"

"Oi…"

Every bit of self-restraint was on the verge of collapsing right then. In fact it was a miracle that it _didn't_. Lenalee was acting as if she had planned this whole damn scenario right out, batting her eyes at him with far too much guile and awaiting his reactions like a behaviourist acting abnormally, calmly patient for cooperation… it was quite suspicious really… but Lenalee would never do something like that.

There was one particular sprout-ass, however, who was low enough to perform such an act of life-threatening idiocy, and, the more Kanda thought about it, the more sense the whole thing started to ever so slowly make…

"Well," Lenalee had turned around, and was walking away as if having not seen a fully-matured man hacking with ridiculous levels of violence at a tiny little Christmas present. "Merry Christmas, Kanda!"

"Chi!"

And, with that, the cremated dust that had at one time been a Christmas present full of cookies was viciously left to rot by a grumpier than hell Yuu Kanda, who was now in dangerous pursuit of a certain white-haired, scar-faced moyashi who had seemingly thought it quite funny to send him a bitchingly fake Christmas present.

* * *

**A/N: **Dear God, I think its time for me to write something serious again, haha, I think all this sarcasm is getting to my head a little _ But I would like to take the time to thank all those who supported this series throughout its debut, because I just love you all so much:

Thank you SO MUCh to the following (in no particular order): Kuraun Kuraun, waterlit, Deviltrigger Dante, Midori Yoshida, DreamMurderZ, Nasha Rei-Kun, cvyy, and AlphaIkaros. And also, to everyone who faved and/or watched this story... THANK YOU SO MUCH AS WELL! I seriously can't thank you all enough, and I hope you all had an epic Xmas! ALLENXLENALEE FOR EVER! 3333


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